MingMing Li1, Beau Pontre2,
Stephen Pickup3, Hong Xu4, Anthony Philips2,
Garth Cooper2, Jun Lu2,5
1School of Biological Sciences,
Auckland University, Auckland, New Zealand; 2School of Biological
Sciences, Auckland University, New Zealand; 3Department of
Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States; 4College
of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shen Zhen University, Shenzhen,
Guangdong, China; 5NCIECP, Auckland University of Technology,
Auckland, New Zealand
We
hypothesise that chemically induced Spermidine/spermine acetyl transferase
(SSAT) activity, which stimulates polyamine catabolism and in turn enhances
fat/glucose metabolism, would decrease fat content and improve cardiac
function in obese mice. C57Bl/6 and matched leptin deficiency (ob/ob) mice
were treated with a potent SSAT inducer, N1, N11-diethylnorspermine (DENS),
through i.p. injection. Results showed that DNES not only can significantly
reduce body fat percentages in both mice models, but also can control ob/obs
body weight. Moreover, DENS can prevent the development of cardiac
hypertrophy in obese mice. Therefore, SSAT is a potential target for the
development of pharmacotherapy in obesity.